Best Hybrid Backup for Business 2019: Solutions for the Entrepreneur

A hybrid backup client helps implement what backup strategists call the 3-2-1 backup rule, an approach that hinges upon the entirely justifiable belief that the best way to secure data is to maintain three copies of your critical files: two stored locally on different devices and the third stored remotely.

While the theory behind 3-2-1 backup doesn’t defy understanding and the benefits should be clear enough to sell the idea to any business relying on data, sloppy implementation can cause an organizational headache, leading to potential data gaps, data loss and, for some industries, regulatory problems.

Rather than try to manage backup to local and remote drives separately, it’s far smarter to find a backup tool that lets you manage both together. To help narrow the field of potential provider candidates for your business, in this article, we run down our picks for the best hybrid backup solutions for business.

These tools are designed to backup to on-premise backup solutions like external drives or, even better, network-attached storage devices, while also offering backup to the cloud. We culled our picks from our best online backup guide, searching for those that support hybrid data protection and are designed for small to mid-sized businesses.

For those familiar with the backup industry, it might come as little surprise that our top backup pick for businesses of all sizes is CloudBerry Backup, a roll-your-own solution that integrates with over 50 different cloud services. Before we get to why CloudBerry triumphs when it comes to hybrid backup, however, a look at our overall thinking should help pave the way.

What Makes the Best Hybrid Backup for Business

It may seem like we’re stating the obvious here, but this point is critical: the first thing we looked for in making our picks is whether they support hybrid backup. Specifically, we looked at how well each service handles it in terms of system resource consumption and ease of use.

Most backup tools fail miserably here, requiring that you create separate backup plans for local and remote devices, which means more work for you and a higher chance for mistakes. Often, that approach also means you have two backup processes running concurrently, which can put a strain on your CPU and make it hard to get other work done.

While preserving computer resources is important, we also looked for speed. Speed is important for hybrid backups, as you will have to backup to two different locations.

Backup can take a long time, especially for the initial file backup and when sending files to the cloud. Algorithmic approaches such as multithreaded backup and block-level backup can make a big difference, as can cloud-server infrastructure, which usually means more data centers and servers.

In business, IT overhead and the bottom line are important, so we took value into account. For hybrid backups, value rests not only on price but device support and capacity as well.

We’ll touch on many of these in more detail in our list, as well as additional features such as those designed to enhance security. We’ll start with our top pick, CloudBerry Backup.

CloudBerry’s backup solution is an oddball in the industry because the company doesn’t maintain its own cloud server network. This is actually a positive feature, because it lets you pick a cloud service that fits your business budget and needs.

Many of the 50-plus cloud services supported by CloudBerry Backup qualify as cloud IaaS services. IaaS is short for “infrastructure as a service” and gives you access to remote server space to host your files.

Among the cloud IaaS services supported by CloudBerry are fast but expensive options like Amazon S3 and Rackspace Cloud Files, as well as cheaper, slower options like Wasabi and Backblaze B2. Additionally, CloudBerry Backup can be used to turn traditional cloud storage services like Dropbox and Google Drive into backup repositories.

In addition to providing better scalability than you’ll get with a fixed-capacity solution like IDrive for Business or Carbonite Pro, CloudBerry takes an efficient approach to backup that IT professionals will appreciate.

When you create a backup plan using the CloudBerry Backup desktop client, you’re given the choice of creating either a cloud-only or hybrid backup plan. By selecting a hybrid plan, you can create a single plan that sends files to your external hard drive or NAS device, then to the cloud from that device.

Any NAS device can be incorporated into this plan, and we’ve named CloudBerry Backup the best backup for NAS.

CloudBerry Backup supports block-level backup. With this feature enabled, when changes are made to files that have already been backed up, only the changed portion of the file gets replaced in the cloud rather than copying the entire file all over again. This is a key time-saving feature for businesses that frequently alter files.

For increased speed, at some system resource cost, you can also manually set how many backup threads you want to run at once.

The client lets you set up file compression, which can reduce storage costs, but we find compression also slows backups down due to the additional algorithms that need to run to reduce file sizes.

CloudBerry Backup supports private encryption as a security measure, letting you scramble files before sending them to your NAS device and the cloud. The encryption protocol used is the Advanced Encryption Standard, which is commonly used by banks, government departments and many cloud services.

Because only you know the encryption key when private encryption is activated, only you can decrypt your files. While encryption is end-to-end, to further protect uploads and downloads, files in transit are also protected using HTTPS.

Other Reasons We Like CloudBerry Backup

CloudBerry Backup supports another customizable feature that can help protect your business against accidental file changes, deletions and file corruptions. With versioning enabled, you can rollback files to previous states.

Versioning is also useful for protection against ransomware, which works by corrupting files. Plus, the client has built-in ransomware detection that looks for encryption changes and prevents file backup in those cases without admin approval first.

The backup client can be purchased for Windows, macOS or Linux, and it’s a one-time cost for a lifetime license. That cost is $49.99 for Windows or $29.99 for macOS and Linux. There are more expensive server backup plans for Windows Server, Linux Server, MS SQL Server and MS Exchange.

Acronis Backup is one of CloudBerry’s top rivals for business users and provides capable hybrid backup performance. While the service takes a less flexible approach to backup by providing its own remote file hosting in Acronis Cloud, many people may find that makes it easier to deal with.

Acronis lets you manage backup processes via a desktop or web-based client. Both are easy to use while providing many essential backup features to customize your data protection. Our Acronis Backup review goes into more detail.

One disadvantage of Acronis Backup is that, unlike CloudBerry, local and remote backup have to be set up separately and they run simultaneously. To consolidate the process, consider setting up your NAS backup using the software included with your NAS device, then backup your mapped network folder to Acronis Backup.

While all that can be a hassle, the service supports block-level backup to help keep things moving. Plus, the Acronis Cloud isn’t a single data center but a global network of servers, which means your data has less distance to travel.

Acronis Backup supports client-side, end-to-end encryption with a password that only you know. It provides multiple levels of AES, including 128, 192 and 256 bits. Two-factor authentication isn’t supported, which, for some businesses, is a good reason to look elsewhere.

Other Reasons We Like Acronis Backup

Acronis supports customizable versioning policies and provides a ransomware-protection feature called Acronis Active Protect, which scans for patterns in file alterations that might indicate an attack.

For businesses that need HIPAA compliance, the company also offers a Business Associate Agreement ratifying compliance.

You can use Acronis Backup to protect computers, servers and mobile devices. It supports Windows Server and Linux Server for servers and Android and iOS for smartphones.

Bad news for businesses on a budget, though: Acronis Backup isn’t cheap. In addition to a software license, available by year or perpetually, you have to pay for Acronis Cloud server space.

SpiderOak ONE doesn’t distinguish between home and business plans, nor does it have some of the handy admin features of Acronis Backup. On top of that, unlike Acronis Cloud or many of the IaaS options for CloudBerry, SpiderOak has a limited server network, with all of its data centers located in the midwestern U.S.

The limited network affects backup speed, as you can read in our SpiderOak ONE review. Block-level backup is supported to help speed things along, but multithreaded backup is not.

SpiderOak supports NAS backup for those in need of a hybrid solution. As with Acronis Backup, you’ll need to backup files to your NAS device separately, probably using your NAS software. Then, after you’ve mounted your NAS backup as a mapped drive on your computer, you can include that drive in your SpiderOak backup plan.

SpiderOak ONE’s hallmark is security. It provides zero-knowledge data protection, as well as two-factor authentication, which Acronis does not. However, two-factor authentication is only available to legacy customers as SpiderOak revamps its client.

SpiderOak has a ransomware mitigation feature called “point-in-time recovery.” It lets you roll back your files to before the malware corrupted them. Unlimited file versioning and deleted-file recovery are supported as well.

Other Reasons We like SpiderOak ONE

Enhancing the value of that sync feature, SpiderOak has clients for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android, but the smartphone apps can only be used to access synced data and you can’t backup smartphone files.

While pricier than some value-based services like IDrive and Backblaze, SpiderOak ONE is still more affordable than either of our first two picks.

IDrive is a favorite for home backup and it has business plans, too. Both can be used to backup external storage devices and the service has clients designed for some of the popular NAS options.

The basic IDrive desktop client makes backup to NAS and the IDrive cloud simple. From the backup tab of the desktop client, you can click on either a radio button to design a cloud plan or one to send files to your local device.

The IDrive development team was short-sighted, though, because there’s no way to replicate your cloud backup plan for NAS backup. Additionally, assuming you’re running continuous backup, both plans run concurrently, which doesn’t bode well for slower computers.

A more pressing issue with IDrive is that it isn’t fast. While we’ve tested good backup speeds from the east coast of the U.S., many users report slow initial backups to the cloud. IDrive does support block-level backup and offers a free courier backup and recovery service that will speed up the process, which you can find out more about in our IDrive review.

Like Acronis, IDrive misses by not offering two-factor authentication but it does provide an option for private encryption.

We’re lodging quite a few complaints about a service we’re ranking fourth, but that’s because the field for hybrid backup isn’t that impressive. There are things to like about IDrive, including that a subscription can be used to backup smartphones. We rank IDrive one of the top services for mobile device backup, in fact.

It also provides server backup, with support for MS SQL, MS Exchange, MS Sharepoint, Oracle and Office 365 Mailbox.

Other Reasons We Like IDrive for Business

In addition to backup space, an IDrive subscription gets you matching cloud storage space. This can be used to free up gigabytes on your hard drive, sync files between devices and share files.

IDrive for Business isn’t cheap, but it is quite a bit less expensive than Acronis Backup. 250GB of backup will cost you around $75 for the first year, after which it increases in price. 2.5TB of backup cost around $800.

The plan comes with decent admin features for monitoring your business backup, too.

If you’re a really small business, you might get away with using the much cheaper IDrive Personal plan, which also supports NAS backup. With that plan, you get 2TB of backup for just over $50 per year.

Our last recommendation for hybrid backup is Carbonite Safe Pro. Like IDrive, user experiences with backup speed vary considerably with Carbonite’s business backup solution. Also like IDrive, that’s thanks, in part, to a small server network. Unlike IDrive, however, Carbonite doesn’t offer courier backup, only recovery — and that’s expensive.

Carbonite Safe Pro does support NAS backup, so it can be used for hybrid backup. You’ll need to create separate backup plans for both cloud and NAS backup, so the best approach may be to backup your computer to your NAS using your NAS’s native software, then create a Carbonite backup plan for your network drive.

The problem with this approach is that NAS backup isn’t continuous with Carbonite. The client will scan your NAS device for changes once an hour, then backup any new or changed files within 24 hours. That leaves a bit of a gap in your protection, so keep that in mind if you have critical business files to safeguard.

Carbonite provides two-factor authentication for password protection, an advantage over Acronis and IDrive. It also supports private, end-to-end encryption using 256-bit AES. In our experience, private encryption and file compression, if enabled, tend to slow Carbonite backups down quite a bit.

Block-level backup is supported to speed up the backup of edited files. Give our Carbonite Safe Pro review a read for more features.

Other Reasons We Like Carbonite Safe Pro

Carbonite supports backup by file-type, which can save considerable time in creating a backup plan. A single subscription can be used to backup unlimited computers and NAS devices, too.

A basic subscription for Carbonite Safe Pro costs a little under $300 for 250GB of backup space, however, which won’t protect many computers. Each additional 100GB costs $99 a year, with no cap on storage space.

For those that don’t need NAS backup for their business, consider CrashPlan Small Business instead of Carbonite. We have a comparison review that highlights the reasons we think CrashPlan beats Carbonite as an all-around backup provider for the workplace.

Final Thoughts

If you’re looking for a powerful hybrid backup tool that comes with a slew of customization options and handles backup to both remote and local drives with minimal hiccups, there’s only one backup provider that stands out. That provider is our top pick, CloudBerry Backup.

The degree of data protection and backup speed you get with CloudBerry — not to mention the cost of backup — will depend on the cloud service you pair it with. However, with over 50 options, there should be something for everyone.

One thought on “Best Hybrid Backup for Business 2019: Solutions for the Entrepreneur”

Stay away from iDrive. iDrive has one of the worst billing departments I have encountered online … in my opinion fraudulent. Over a year after cancelling my original monthly service, they charged me a full year’s service. They refused to acknowledge my initial cancellation, and they refused to cancel the renewal without my having logged in to an online account, which of course, I did not have after the initial cancellation.

Joseph Gildred

A technophile with a love for words, Joseph Gildred utilizes his degree in comparative literature and background as an information technology analyst to ponder the future of human ingenuity. Not one to sit still for too long, Joseph joined the team because cloud technology and hopping from place to place go hand in hand. He has roots in Belgrade, Maine.